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Venture capital firms last year invested â¬4.6bn ($6.7bn) in Europe, the highest amount since 2002 and a sign the industry is enjoying a renaissance.

The figure was 2% higher than in 2006, when firms invested €4.46bn, according to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource, the data provider which shares the same owner as Financial News.

The record remains the €10.9bn invested in 2001 at the height of the technology bubble.

A move by many firms towards later stage venture capital investing played a part in the increased total, according to the report. The volume of deals supported this: there were 897 investments made last year, a 10% decrease compared to the 998 deals in 2006. That meant the average size of a venture investment rose from €4.5m to €5.1m last year.

The median deal size last year was €2.8m, the highest since Dow Jones VentureSource began compiling European data.

The value of second round investments rose to €1.04bn last year, up 12% from 2006’s figure, while later-stage rounds saw a 13% rise to €2.07bn. Both statistics support the trend towards investing in more mature businesses as venture capital firms have grown more risk-averse.

Jessica Canning, Director of Global Research for VentureSource, said: “Our data shows investors are still eager to tap the next wave of innovation in emerging areas like energy production, medical devices and Web-related services. But they’re also focusing more resources toward developing older portfolio companies in traditional spaces like software, biopharmaceuticals and communications and networks—the few areas that have been able to find exits in Europe’s tight liquidity markets.

“With a sputtering [initial public offering] market and mergers and acquisitions hard to come by, only the most viable of European companies are winning over venture capitalists. At the same time, investors are equipping these promising companies with the capital they need to compete globally and to best position them for a liquidity event.”